Unity and Caring - Prerna Rathod

Unity is the situation in which people are in agreement and working together, while caring means

showing that you care about other people. Unity and Care go hand in hand. A person who truly cares for you will be united with you without any conditions. But it is not necessary that a person who is united to you truly cares for you. I would like to mention some beautiful lines here related to being united: "When "I" is replaced by "We", even illness becomes wellness."

This basically means that if we are united, then we can tackle and fight problems more easily. Let me now mention a quote related to care: "Everyone wants to find a caring person,

but no one wants to be one."

This tells us that, in the world of fake people, it is very difficult to find a real one. So when you find someone just keep them forever. Because if we don't keep them then later we will realize that we have lost a diamond while searching for stones.

I remember an incident in my class. We had to present a skit. I mentioned this to my class and asked them their plan. The first suggestion was boys one group and girls one group. I told them to go ahead with their plan if they wish to do so. After some discussion, students came to me and told me that they have problems regarding who will play boys part in a girl’s group and girls part in the boy’s group. So I asked them to find a solution. 

At last, they came with the suggestion that they will create a single play where everyone will participate. They even apologized for making groups on the basis of gender.  After that students selected the play, gave parts to everyone and practised. The play was liked by the whole school. Thus, unity makes it easy to tackle problems. This incident made them care for each other and stood for each other to help in times of need. 

I would like to conclude by saying that,

"Be sure to embrace whatever stage or season of life you are in.

Remember: God wastes nothing."

Prerna Rathod

Educator: The Fabindia School

prd@fabindiaschools.in

Humility and Appreciation - Byju Joseph

Humility is a humble nature to be possessed by everyone. It is one of the personality

traits. A humble person will always be loved and respected by others. He never expects any reward from others for doing any favour. We can observe this virtue in all great people.  Humility has its own attractive power. Humility in a person can make several changes in others. There was a real incident in Mother Teresa’s life. When she was serving in the slums of Calcutta she had some orphan children with her.

One day it happened that they did not have anything to eat. Mother Teresa called the children and told them, “We have nothing to eat today. So let’s pray to God, He will give something to us.’ After a while, she told them, “Come let us go and start to beg. The children followed her. She saw a shopkeeper and humbly asked him to give something to eat. But the shopkeeper hated Mother Teresa and he angrily spits saliva on her palm. She slowly wiped the saliva with her sari and said, “Thank you for what you have given for me. Will you give something to my children?” The shopkeeper was astonished at these words. He was shocked at the humility of Mother Teresa. He apologized for his misbehaviour. At that time onward he changed entirely and started helping the orphan children and it continued regularly. This is one of the most heart-touching real examples of humility.

Humility is a golden value which always entitles appreciation. The person who is humble will be appreciated everywhere. When we appreciate anyone, we value him and respect him. Appreciation is a beautiful gift that we can give to others for their service. It provides happiness and satisfaction to them and the same effect will be there towards us.

Being educators it is our duty to inculcate these values in our children. But these cannot be taught by lecturing. Teachers are role models for them. They are copying the behaviour, attitude and personality of teachers. So it is very important to be humble enough for them. For their minute contributions and humble acts, appreciation is important. We should appreciate them and make them aware that they are precious in their life.  Then they also will learn to appreciate others. These attempts will surely motivate them and that will inspire them to do many useful things in their life.

Byju P. Joseph

The Fabindia School

bjh@fabindiaschools.in

Humility & Appreciation - Penta BHIS

Humility

‘I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.’                                                                             –Socrates

Ms. Cooper

The young Ms Cooper started on her first teaching job. On the first day at school, she thought that she knew it all. Not in the sense that she had mastered the art of teaching, but she was well aware of the dos and don’ts. Ms Cooper was very careful about ‘going by the book’. In the staff room, she could easily gauge whom she would like to have as a mentor to look up to.

In the days that followed, she comes across a no-nonsense Math teacher, Mr Iyer. Despite his strict manner, he was greatly appreciated by his students. The way they greeted him or made it a point never to bunk his lessons, made Ms Cooper want to learn from him. How was the class able to appreciate this highly learned teacher? Were the teenagers not alienated by his immense knowledge?

She came to glimpse a part of the answer, one day. Mr Iyer was so immersed in the task at hand that

Mr Iyer

he did not hear the bell ring. His students came to the staff room to call him. Embarrassed at his own late-coming to class, he apologized to them in a courteous manner. Neither did he presume that his students should accept his delay in coming to class nor did he excuse himself for this lapse. This humility was a part of his moral make-up. No wonder, his students reached his class on time!

He also gave Ms Cooper friendly advice, “It is not necessary that students have to like me, but it is necessary for me to like and accept all of them. That is important.”

She was humbled by his words.
He even told her of his ‘happy folder’ where he kept all the notes, thank-you cards, work from a challenging student, letters or emails from former students and so on. Even if his house were on fire, the ‘happy folder’ would be the thing he would save first.

Happy Folder😊

Ms Cooper followed his advice and created her own happy folder which grew in size over the years. She was lucky to learn from the best and the more experienced teachers around her. She remembers her starting days - no idea how to control her class consistently, or plan lessons in challenging situations or teach students effectively while engaging them or deal with daily conflicts in the classroom.

Appreciation

But who said Rome was built in a day?

She soon found something good in every student and appreciated it, owned up to an honest mistake (without making excuses!) and found appreciation from her colleagues.

She always remembers to mention Mr Iyer, now that she mentors new members in her team.

Penta @ Billabong International High School, Thane
- Jeeji Sanjeev, Sanika Joshi, Arpita M.G., Muskaan Menda, Radhika Anand, Supriya Naravankar & Bhavani Swamy.

Happiness and Tolerance - Nikita Rajpurohit

Students always have the tendency to grasp things in different ways which may not always

be what we would like to portray to them. As teachers, we are expected to maintain a balance between students’ happiness as well as class discipline.

Happiness and Tolerance are like two sides of the same coin where the students, as well as the teachers, may face difficulty in applying them in their every-day lives. A classroom incident to which we as teachers or reminiscing our school days may relate to is given in the following short story.

So there's this one student in Class IX who has been good in academics, good in sports, moreover he is well-disciplined, but there's only one thing that he is lacking, that is tolerance and that too when he has done a mistake unintentionally and he gets a scold from the teacher, he loses all his cool and becomes the real opposite of what he actually is...

He feels happy when he succeeds in anything, be it academic, sports, arts, anything but once he gets a sign of failure, he doesn't seem to care what he speaks or what is he doing...

I noticed it many times and I was a bit curious to know a solution for him where he can be happy and tolerant at even bad situations. So one day, I entered the class, called him up and asked for his notebook, and I was really glad to see that he is all checked with his work. Still, I made a quick comment by saying, “You should pay attention to your handwriting, my dear."At the very moment, he listened to my statement and became red in anger and said,” I won't do anything now". And yes, he was in the intolerance phase now.

I called another student who had not completed his work and asked him to improve his handwriting and with that, the second student replied, "Yes ma'am, I will". Then I took the first student (the main kid) outside the classroom and made him sit on a chair and said, " You see even though he didn't complete his work, I was aware of that but when I suggested him the same thing I did to you, he was very polite with his answer and I know he will definitely pay attention to his handwriting. On the same place, you're a good student and we expect you to be the best as you are, and if you take our suggestions positively, it will be you who will be good at everything. I hope you understood my kid".

The next day when I entered the school gate, he came up with a smile and apologized for yesterday's scenario and said," From today onwards, I will not be angry at anything and really try to take your suggestions in a productive way".

This made me very glad, seeing a student like him who understood the concept of happiness and tolerance...

Nikita Rajpurohit

The Fabindia School